Think | Believe | Know

04

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Pop Quiz #1: Name the main characters in the original Star Wars movie (total global box office receipts $775million) saga? OK. You know them all don’t you (especially if you were about 10 years old when it opened) Pop Quiz #2: Name the main characters in Avatar ($2.78billion)? Or Inception ($825million)? Or Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1.12billion)? Can you name even one? No, “the blue guy” or...

06

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The room on Sansome There were a dozen of us in a single room on Sansome Street in San Francisco. Outside was San Francisco in 1999. The tail end of the first dotcom boom. Levi’s Plaza up the street. A bit farther to the Fog City Diner. When you really needed a break, the steps up to Coit Tower. Inside: No cubicles, just two conference room tables, six...

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Some products cure diseases. If you want to kill the flu, you go to a doctor and get medicine. Other products alleviate symptoms. If you want to sleep through the night, you go get a bottle of NyQuil. But when you wake up, you still have the flu. The thing is, selling either product is a pretty good way to generate revenue. Companies have made...

08

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Imagine this studio session. Over there is John Lennon, one of the most distinctive voices of our time and a blistering guitarist. Over on the other side of the studio is George Harrison, the so-called “quiet” Beatle, whose songwriting and musical phrasing has few equals. On the drums is Ringo, the heart beat of the band, ever steady and lyrical. Then there’s Paul McCartney, a musical savant...

03

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The best marketed products win. The best sold products win. NOT the BEST products. Especially in technology. No one cares about your features and functions. The road to enterprise software success is paved with the carcasses of product development executives who thought their code was more elegant, or more stable. But Ariba and Oracle still kicked their butts. Don’t try to tell me that Apple...

06

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This infographic from Marketing Profs helps quantify something we are all experiencing, namely the way social media are changing the nature of B2B selling. The highlights from the post are, Social data has gone beyond B2C to influence B2B sellers and buyers Some 84% of B2B executives use social media as a source for making purchase decisions Moreover, 92% of B2B buyers use social media...

06

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It’s been said that “culture eats process for lunch” and that’s certainly true. I’d add to it and say that “demographics eat culture.” Ultimately, massive changes in culture are driven by generational change. Think about it: There is not a person in the United States who does not “get” the idea of television. We all use it, see it, hate it, love it and have...

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#1 “We lost the deal because of price.” Too convenient. It’s usually something else. #2 “Our product demos usually go very well.” May be so, but did you know you they liked your competitor’s interface better? #3 “The main target audience for our solutions is the C-suite.” Are they the buyer, the user, the influencer or the sponsor? Which member of the “C-suite” constitutes your target audience? CEO? CMO? CFO?...

04

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Last quarter was rough. Revenue was down. Renewals were harder to secure than usual and you lost several deals to a couple of start-ups. And you think you know why: You software UI hasn’t been updated in years. That’s a problem, but making an investment in re-doing the front-end interface is hard to justify, especially when your back-end code still works. In fact, it works great… maybe even...

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Scenario 1. Imagine after a major rainstorm you walk down to your basement to check things out. You pull the string attached to the hanging incandescent light bulb. After your eyes adjust to the dim light, you walk slowly down the stairs. There, covering the concrete slab, is an inch of water. It’s receding slowly, but the stains on the wall reveal that the water was...